Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco/San Mateo counties) introduced H.J. Res. 51, a joint resolution that will remove the deadline and allow for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment by three more states. Her press release includes a quote from NOW President, Terry O’Neill.
Authors Diana Zuckerman and Brandel France de Bravo write for National Center for Health Research: “Whether the most accurate statistics of campus rape are 1 in 5, 1 in 7, or 1 in 20, remember that there are about 10 million women who are attending colleges in the U.S. Even 1 in 20 would mean 500,000 women who have been or will be raped before they graduate. Campus rape and other types of sexual assault are a huge problem for colleges and an enormous tragedy. Most colleges have done a terrible job of preventing them or ensuring justice for the students involved.”
Several years ago, then-Gov. Rick Perry conducted a fabled interview with The Texas Tribune in which Perry defended the state’s stress on abstinence-only sex education while his interviewer pointed out that Texas had one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country. “I’m just going to tell you from my own personal life. Abstinence works,” Perry retorted. Does Texas traditionally decide state policy based on politicians’ sexual history? If so, that’s terrifying.
Author Lynn M. Paltrow writes for Political Research Associates: “It is likely that most people in the U.S., whether they identify as “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” don’t want to see any woman locked up for having an abortion (including the more than 60 percent of women who have abortions who are already mothers). Perhaps this is why anti-abortion organizations work so hard to deny the predictable and inevitable consequences of their efforts: women being locked up.”
Amanda Marcotte writes for Reality Check: “There’s also a deeper irony in this story. Harris felt entitled to say “no thank you” to raising two little girls, after he had asked for them, overruled people’s reported objections to adopting them, and finalized the adoption—all because he and his wife realized after the fact that they were in over their heads. But while he reserved the ability to say “no” to parenthood after making all these commitments, he wants to begrudge women who are saying “no” responsibly, by doing it before they have a baby and before someone else has come to depend on them, of the same right. This isn’t even “abortion for me and not for thee.” Harris, as a mighty patriarch, wants to put his personal comfort before the needs of actual human beings who require care, all while demanding that women sacrifice their own wellbeing for people that don’t even exist yet.”